It Came from Buster Space!
by Dead Composer
Summary: Buster learns that thinking someone is an alien can hurt that person's feelings.


This fic is rated G.

Disclaimer: Marc Brown owns the Arthur characters. If you read this fic and send me money because you like it so much, he will sue me.

----

The third-graders in Mr. Ratburn's class were assembling in their room at the beginning of the school day. It was show-and-tell day; Arthur had a drawing sitting in front of him, while Buster had a box of donuts.

"Whatcha got there?" Buster asked his friend.

"It's just a drawing of my dad making a cake," said Arthur. "What are you planning to do with that box of donuts?"

"I'm gonna stuff them into my mouth, all at once."

"Are you sure that's wise?"

"Hey, I've been practicing all week for this."

"Can you do it?"

"So far I've only managed to stuff in half a box, but I've got a feeling that today's the day!"

At that moment Sue Ellen entered the room and sat down, holding an exotic-looking potted plant in her hands.

"Whoa," Arthur marveled.

"I've never seen a plant like that before," said Buster.

"It must be from outer space," joked Francine from the desk behind him.

Mr. Ratburn called the class to order. "As you know, children, today is show-and-tell day. Sue Ellen, your plant looks a little, er, hungry, so I'll let you go first."

"This is a nepenthe plant," said Sue Ellen as she stood before the other kids. "They grow in warm tropical climates, but I got the seeds for this one from the local nursery, and I've been growing it in my backyard greenhouse. I feed it flies and moths and other small insects. In the wild, nepenthe plans have been known to grow to more than 100 feet in length, and even eat small animals."

"Like rabbits," thought the terrified Buster.

"Very good, Sue Ellen," said Mr. Ratburn. "A few plants like that one might go a long way toward fixing the mosquito problem around here. Fern, you're next."

"This is a poem I wrote," Fern told the class. "I saw the best TV shows of my generation destroyed by the madness of network executives..."

Buster paid no heed to Fern's recital, as he was engrossed in a fantasy sequence

Sue Ellen puttered around in her greenhouse, mulching an enormous plant with a huge mouth. The plant began to wiggle about and even speak as she worked.

"Feed me," it demanded.

"I am feeding you," Sue Ellen pointed out.

"I want rabbit," the plant growled.

"No way," Sue Ellen protested. "You're not eating my friend."

Then the plant opened its huge mouth and shot out a cloud of pollen that enveloped the girl. When the cloud dispersed, she stood motionlessly with glazed eyes.

"Feed me," the plant repeated. "Rabbit."

"Yes, master," Sue Ellen droned.

Buster was sitting on a patio chair in front of his house, reading a joke book, when Sue Ellen shuffled toward him. "You must come with me," she intoned emotionlessly.

"Is anything wrong?" asked Buster as he rose.

"Nothing's wrong," the cat girl mumbled. "Everything's fine. I'm not being hypnotically controlled by an alien plant that wants to eat you."

"How did you know my next question?"

Buster followed Sue Ellen to her greenhouse, where he marveled at the incredible variety of flora, especially the plant with the huge maw. "My, what a big plant you have," he remarked.

To his surprise, the plant spoke. "All the better to...oh, forget it."

The plant opened its mouth, grabbed Buster, and swallowed him whole. As Sue Ellen watched mindlessly, a new flower bud grew out of the plant's side. When it opened, Buster's face and ears appeared where a flower should have been

"Buster?" Mr. Ratburn called out. "Buster?"

The boy snapped to attention. "Huh?" He quickly glanced downward to make sure his body was still there.

"Buster, what do you have to show us today?" asked the teacher.

He looked squeamishly at the box of donuts. "Uh, I'm not hungry anymore."

"In that case," said Ratburn, "you may want to consider sharing your donuts with the rest of the class."

----

As the kids wandered about during the class break, Buster was talking to George and Jenna about the strange plant they had seen. "I saw a movie where alien plants took over people's bodies," said George.

"Do you think she might have grown that plant from the bacteria on the Mars rocks?" Jenna wondered.

"All I know," said Buster, "is that a plant like that can't be from around here. It must be otherworldly in origin!"

"Yeah," George agreed. "Who ever heard of a plant that eats bugs? Everybody knows plants eat dirt."

Arthur and Muffy joined the three kids. "Buster Baxter, what are you babbling about now?" Muffy wanted to know.

"You'll wished you had listened to me when the invasion begins," said Buster confidently.

"What invasion?" Arthur wondered.

"The invasion of the slime mutants from the planet Gamma Ramma Lamma Ding Dong," Muffy mocked. "Or is there a new alien threat? Honestly, Buster, you are so gullible."

"You'll see I was right about Sue Ellen all along," said Buster.

Muffy gasped. "How rude!"

----

At the end of music class, Muffy was putting away her violin, and Sue Ellen her

saxophone. "Got a minute?" Muffy asked her friend.

"What is it?" inquired Sue Ellen.

"First of all, I think your plant was really cool," Muffy told her.

"Thanks."

"As your friend, however, I think I should let you know that when you bring all that exotic stuff to school, you're giving some of the kids the wrong idea."

"It's only a plant," said Sue Ellen. "It's not like it eats people."

"Yeah, but before that there was the slingshot, the funny-looking mask, the necklace with teeth on it..."

Sue Ellen started to sound concerned. "What's your point?"

"My point is that it's weird. I mean, the other kids think it's weird. I don't think it's weird. You could walk into class with a shrunken elephant head and I wouldn't flinch."

"I don't have any shrunken elephant heads. Besides, that would be poaching."

"They think you're an alien," Muffy blurted out.

"Who does?"

"Buster. And I think he's infecting the other kids with his nonsense as well."

"I thought we'd settled this," said Sue Ellen darkly. "Someone needs to teach that boy a lesson."

And someone did. As Buster stood in the cafeteria line waiting for Mrs. McGrady to dole him a portion of mystery meat, Sue Ellen approached him, grim-faced.

"What's up?" he greeted the girl.

Without hesitation, Sue Ellen grabbed Buster's left ear, yanked it down to the level of her mouth, and shouted directly into it. "CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

"Yeah," said the shaken rabbit boy.

"GOOD!" Sue Ellen bellowed. "BECAUSE I'M GONNA GIVE YOU SOME WORDS TO LIVE BY! THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS ALIENS! AND IF I EVER HEAR YOU TALKING ABOUT ALIENS AGAIN, I'LL HURT YOU!"

Everyone in the cafeteria watched in stunned silence as Sue Ellen released her grip on Buster's ear and stormed away.

Then Binky stepped forward to assist the quivering bunny. "You all right?".

Buster pointed at the right side of his head. "T-talk into the other ear!" he stammered.

----

"It's impossible," Buster pondered. "I can't stop talking about aliens. It's my nature. What am I gonna do?" He glanced over at Sue Ellen's desk, and the cat girl shot him a dirty look.

Begin Buster fantasy sequence.

It was a pleasant, sunny day, and Buster and Sue Ellen passed each other while strolling down the sidewalk.

"Hi, Buster," said Sue Ellen with a smile.

Buster smiled as well. "Hi, Sue Alien."

Realizing his blunder, Buster suck his hand over his mouth in embarrassment. But he was too late--Sue Ellen was fuming mad. Buster screamed and ran for his life, but Sue Ellen pursued him, leaping from housetop to housetop like Shu Lien in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". Finally she landed in front of Buster, assumed a tae kwon do position, and let out a blood-curdling battle cry...

End Buster fantasy sequence.

He knew he had to get help, or at least advice. After school let out, he found Arthur and Brain in front of the entrance. "Wait up, guys!" he called to them. "You gotta help me!"

"Didn't you hear, Buster?" said Brain. "Mr. Ratburn extended the deadline on the book report."

"It's not that," said Buster anxiously. "Sue Ellen's got it in for me. She'll kill me if she hears me talking about..."

"About what?" asked Arthur.

Buster made the curved shape of a flying saucer with his fingers, then lowered it while whistling.

"Aliens?"

"Shhh!" said Buster, looking around to make sure no one heard.

Begin Buster fantasy sequence.

Sue Ellen trudged along the school hallway in a robotic manner, her ears moving back and forth like radar dishes. Suddenly she picked up Arthur saying the word 'aliens', and changed direction toward the front exit, droning, "Crush! Kill! Destroy!"

End Buster fantasy sequence.

Brain began to speak calmly as Arthur and Buster walked along with him. "What I'm about to tell you shouldn't be spread around," he said. "You have no reason to be afraid of Sue Ellen."

"But she knows tae kwon do," Buster insisted. "She can break stuff with her hands."

"She's only been practicing for a year or two," said Brain.

"But don't let Binky know that," Arthur cautioned.

"If Sue Ellen and Binky had a fight, it wouldn't even be a fight," Brain predicted. "Binky's twice her size."

"But could she beat me?" Buster worried.

"Hard to say," said Brain. "She may have the advantage of martial arts prowess, but you have the advantage of being a boy."

"You could just stop talking about aliens," Arthur suggested.

Buster was stunned. "I thought you were my friend!"

----

Evening came, and Bitzi was tucking Buster into bed. "Mom, if I don't come home from school tomorrow, it's because I'm either dead or grievously injured," Buster told her.

"Don't talk that way, dear," said Bitzi soothingly. "You'll give yourself nightmares."

"If that's not a foreshadowing," said Buster, "I don't know what is."

"Good night, honey bunny," said Bitzi, kissing her son on the forehead.

Buster fell asleep almost as soon as the light went out.

He was awakened by a strange humming sound that seemed to come from the window. Looking toward the direction of the noise, he saw a short creature standing in the middle of the room. The creature resembled a rat boy with green fur, and wore a green uniform and helmet with antennae sticking out of it. Startled, Buster bolted upright.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

"I am Zardok from the planet Zardok," replied the creature in an electronically modified boy's voice.

"You're an alien!" Buster exclaimed with delight.

"Shhh!" said Zardok quietly. "Do you wanna get the military involved?"

Buster lowered his voice to an almost reverential level. "Are you a good alien or an evil alien?"

"What day of the week is it?" asked the green creature.

"Tuesday."

"Then I'm a good alien."

Excited, Buster started to climb out of his bed, but Zardok snapped his fingers, and a weird sensation overwhelmed the rabbit boy. Turning his head to look down, he realized that he was floating several feet above the bed. Odder still, his body appeared to be lying asleep, and he was no longer inside of it.

"Whoa," he marveled. "Am I dead?"

"Yes," replied the alien.

"Cool!" he enthused. "I'm a ghost! Who you gonna call? Ghost Buster!"

"No, you're not dead, dumb-dumb," said Zardok condescendingly. "You're just incorporealized. It's like being dead, only you have to go to school again in the morning."

"Are you gonna take me to your planet?" Buster asked him.

"That's what I would do if I were an evil alien. But I'm a good alien today, so I'm just going to show you the error of your ways."

"Oh, no!" wailed Buster. "Character building!"

Before he knew what was happening, he found himself floating above the houses on his street. It was a moonlit night, so he could vaguely tell that he was headed in the direction of Sue Ellen's house. The alien Zardok flew alongside him.

"What did you say your name was?" asked Buster.

"I am Zardok from the planet Zardok, in the Zardok solar system, in the Zardok galaxy."

"Why do you call everything Zardok?"

"Because that's the only word in the Zardok language," the alien explained. "Now brace yourself. We're about to go backwards in time, and it can be a little rough if you haven't done it before."

Zardok snapped his fingers, and a spinning vortex engulfed both of them. "Zardok everything call you do why?" uttered Buster as he swirled about.

Finally the vortex dropped them onto the front yard of Sue Ellen's house. Judging from the position of the sun, it was the middle of the afternoon.

"I feel sick," Buster moaned. "I think I'm gonna hurl."

"Stop whining, dumb-dumb," said Zardok. "There's nothing to hurl. Your stomach is still in bed."

"Why is the sun shining at night?" Buster wondered.

"Because we've gone back in time."

As Buster glanced around in astonishment, he saw Sue Ellen walking down the street toward him. "Omigosh, it's Sue Ellen!" he exclaimed. "If she sees me with you, she'll be furious!"

"She can neither see nor hear us," Zardok assured him.

"Really?" said Buster, thrilled. Leaping in front of Sue Ellen, he chanted, "Aliens! Aliens! Aliens!" The girl passed transparently through his body and entered the house.

"We don't have time for jokes," Zardok scolded him. "I turn into an evil alien at midnight."

"Why did you bring me here?" asked Buster. "Oh, wait. I know. Sue Ellen's one of your kind, isn't she?"

"No, Buster," said Zardok. "You are."

Buster's jaw dropped.

"Just kidding."

The incorporeal duo floated through the wall of the Armstrong home, where they saw Sue Ellen holding a conversation with her sari-clad mother.

"Mom, Buster thinks I'm an alien," said Sue Ellen sadly.

"Who's Buster?" asked Mrs. Armstrong.

"The boy with the ears."

"Oh, right. The son of that nice reporter who interviewed us. He seems like a good boy."

"Yeah, I suppose so. But he has weird ideas, plus he eats like a pig."

"Did you catch that?" said Zardok to Buster. "Let's rewind it."

The alien snapped his fingers, and Sue Ellen became stuck in a time loop. "Eats like a pig. Eats like a pig. Eats like a pig..."

"Cut it out!" Buster complained.

"Why does he think you're an alien?" asked Sue Ellen's mother.

"I don't know," said Sue Ellen. "I guess I'm a little different because I wasn't raised in this culture."

"It takes time to get used to a new culture," said Mrs. Armstrong.

"Time which I never have," Sue Ellen lamented. "By the time I finally fit in here, we'll be on our way to Mongolia."

"This is boring," Buster said to Zardok. "Can I see your spaceship now?"

"Not until we've made one more stop," the alien replied.

They floated through the neighborhood again, this time in the direction of the elementary school.

"If there's only one word in your language," said Buster, "how can you understand each other?"

"One word can mean many different things depending on the context," Zardok explained. "For example, if I say 'Zardok Zardok', it means 'Nice weather, eh?' but if I say 'Zardok Zardok', it means 'Your house is on fire.'"

"What if I say 'Zardok Zardok Zardok'?"

"So does your mother."

----

Buster saw himself standing in the cafeteria line, shaking in his shoes after Sue Ellen had screamed into his ear. "It's horrible," he moaned, barely able to watch. "She's a monster."

"I thought she was an alien," said Zardok.

He and Buster floated after Sue Ellen as she stormed off, curious to see where she would go. Her destination turned out to be an empty corner of the soccer field, where she sat down on the grass and started to cry.

"Gosh," Buster mused. "She really does have human emotions."

They soon learned that Binky had followed her out of the school as well. "What's the matter?" the bulldog boy asked the sorrowing girl.

"It's no use," Sue Ellen mourned. "I've tried so hard to fit in, but everyone still thinks I'm weird."

"Who thinks you're weird?" Binky demanded to know. "I'll clobber 'em!"

"Buster still thinks I'm an alien," Sue Ellen complained.

Binky raised a fist. "The rabbit gets it!"

"He made me lose my temper. I never lose my temper."

"I really hurt her feelings," Buster reflected. "I had no idea. But that still doesn't explain that crazy plant."

"Hasn't he ever seen a carnivorous plant before?" said Sue Ellen bitterly. "That boy is so ignorant. It's like he's never been across the street."

"Yes, I have!" Buster retorted. "Lots of times!"

"Figure of speech, dumb-dumb," said Zardok.

"I can clobber him right now if you want," Binky offered.

"No, don't clobber him," said Sue Ellen. "Just explain to him politely that I'm not an alien."

"Politely? You mean 'please' and 'thank you' and all that?"

"Yeah."

"I'll try." As he turned to leave, he took a quick look back at Sue Ellen. "You're not one, right?"

The cat girl sighed with exasperation.

"That's strange," Buster pondered. "Binky never talked to me."

"Maybe he still means to clobber you," Zardok suggested.

Buster shuddered.

----

Having returned to their original time, Buster and Zardok floated about the neighborhood while discussing their recent experiences.

"But if Sue Ellen's not an alien," asked Buster, "then why is she so different from the rest of us?"

"Zardok Zardok Zardok," said the alien.

"Huh? What does that mean?"

"You didn't understand? It was perfectly clear to me."

"But I don't know your language."

"That's the difference between you and Sue Ellen," Zardok explained. "She's been to more places and cultures than you have. You might say she speaks a different language. Some of the things she says and does may be strange to you, but they make perfect sense to her."

"I think I get it now," said Buster.

"Then let's get you home," said Zardok.

The pair floated through a window, and Zardok snapped his fingers. Buster felt himself drawn into a bed where a figure lay under a blanket.

The alien glanced down at his timepiece. "Only five more minutes until I turn evil," he thought. "Kids these days and their late bedtimes."

As he turned back toward the window, he was startled to hear a girl's scream from behind him. Whirling, he beheld Prunella sitting up in her bed, an expression of horror on her face.

"My ears!" she shrieked, feeling the top of her head. "What happened to my ears? Where did all this hair come from? Why do I sound like a girl?"

Zardok slapped his forehead. "I've got the wrong house!"

He raised his hand and prepared to snap, but Prunella motioned for him to stop. "Wait a minute," she said, and then grinned wickedly. "Muffy's hosting a slumber party this weekend..."

"Forget it," said Zardok, and banished Buster from Prunella's body with a quick snap of his fingers.

----

The next day, Buster and Sue Ellen met in front of the school just before the start of classes.

"I want to apologize," said Sue Ellen.

"I want to apologize too," said Buster.

Binky walked up to them. "Hey, Buster..."

"Just a minute, Binky," Buster stalled him.

"You first," said Sue Ellen.

"No, you first," said Buster.

"I'm sorry for losing my temper and threatening to hurt you," said Sue Ellen.

"I'm sorry for thinking you're an alien," said Buster.

"Then you don't think I'm an alien anymore?"

"Of course not. What do you take me for?"

Sue Ellen sighed. "What a relief."

Buster turned to Binky. "Did you want something?"

"Well, I was gonna clobber you," said Binky, "but I changed my mind."

As Binky strolled away, Prunella stopped by to greet them.

"Hi, Prunella," said Buster. "You wouldn't believe the dream I had last night."

"I had a funny dream too," said Prunella. "You were in it. And some green guy. What was your dream about?"

"Never mind," said Buster.

THE END


End file.
